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NRA lobbyist: Obama ad 'ill-advised'

The National Rifle Association’s top lobbyist admitted Friday an ad the group made invoking President Barack Obama’s daughters was “ill-advised.”

“I don’t think it was particularly helpful, that ad,” Jim Baker, the head of the federal affairs division at the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, told Reuters. “I thought it was ill-advised.”

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The ad called Obama an “elitist hypocrite” for sending his children to a school with armed guards while opposing an NRA plan to mandate armed guards in every school. The ad was inaccurate: Sidwell Friends, the private school Obama’s daughters attend in Northwest Washington, D.C. doesn’t have armed guards. The White House called the NRA’s ad “repugnant” and “cowardly.” Obama’s plan to combat gun violence, unveiled last week, includes additional funding for school resource officers.

“I think the ad could have made a good point, if it talked about the need for increased school security, without making the point using the president’s children,” said Baker, who met with Vice President Joe Biden as the White House was crafting its gun violence proposals.